Seventy-six years later, Maryland will right a wrong and acknowledge a racial injustice that will make one family grateful their proud ancestor finally can rest in peace.
Wilmeth Sidat-Singh was forced to sit out undefeated Syracuse’s game at Maryland in 1937 because the school refused to compete against black players. On Saturday, Maryland will honor the two-sport star and pay tribute to his memory while acknowledging the intolerant slight.
“I’m feeling like something has been lifted off my shoulders,” said Lyn Henley, Sidat-Singh’s first cousin. “At family gatherings, I have always carried the torch for him. I’ve talked about Wilmeth. I’ve done research about him.”
Sidat-Singh, a star halfback who also played basketball for Syracuse and was a prep star at DeWitt Clinton in The Bronx, was thought to be Hindu — after his biological father, Elias Webb, passed away, his mother, Pauline Miner, married Samuel Sidat-Singh, a West Indian doctor, and he took his stepfather’s last name — until the day before the contest, when an article in the Washington Tribune revealed he wasn’t of Indian descent, contrary to popular belief.
Maryland didn’t admit its first black students until the 1950s, when the campus was forced to do so by court order. And back then, like other members of the Southern Conference, the school wouldn’t let its sports teams play against African-Americans.
Stories about the game left out any mention of Sidat-Singh’s absence, according to a story in Washington City Paper. Instead, Maryland’s 13-0 upset victory was attributed to handling the poor weather better than Syracuse did, the paper said.
Shortly before kickoff, in the locker room, Syracuse coach Ossie Solem informed the team Sidat-Singh would not play.
It was a regret of Sidat-Singh’s former Syracuse teammate and friend Marty Glickman, the famous New York sportscaster said in James Freedman’s HBO documentary “Glickman,” that he didn’t protest Sidat-Singh’s benching. Glickman, who was not allowed to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin because of he was Jewish, said his similar experience gave him pause.
“To this day, it’s the one thing in my life I’m sorry for,” Glickman said in the film. “All the things I’ve done or haven’t done aren’t terribly important. This, this hurts me because I could’ve done something about it, and I didn’t.”
Sidat-Singh was killed six years later, in 1943, during a training mission with the Tuskegee Airmen — the only African American unit in the U.S. Army Air Force — when his engine failed and the plane landed in Lake Huron.
“He was good enough to die for our country, but he wasn’t good enough to play for Maryland,” Glickman said.
Henley, 68, said his father, Benjamin Henley, in attendance for the game, often talked about watching Sidat-Singh on the bench with a towel over his bowed head. Sidat-Singh got his revenge a year later, leading Syracuse to a 53-0 victory at home over Maryland.
Maryland Associate Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Kumea Shorter-Gooden, a cousin of Sidat-Singh’s through marriage, put the wheels in motion for Saturday’s tribute. She was told the story by Henley at a holiday party last year, and immediately contacted athletic director Kevin Anderson, who didn’t need any convincing.
Over 20 family members are expected at the game. Between the first and second quarters, a contingent of the family will step onto the field, and a statement will be read describing Sidat-Singh’s life and his premature death serving his country and acknowledging the racist treatment he endured that day in 1937 while photos of him flash on the scoreboard. Syracuse players will wear Sidat-Singh’s No. 19 decals on their helmets in his memory.
“The family has been waiting 76 years for this to happen,” Shorter-Gooden said. “It’s been 76 years of living with this horrible injustice. Our family members, their pain is our pain. It’s really healing to have this moment where the University pauses and says this happened.”
In February 2005, Syracuse retired Sidat-Singh’s basketball jersey at halftime of a home game with Providence.
Henley expects Saturday to be an emotional day for the entire family, particularly himself. He was 13 years old when his parents told him about his cousin. A star athlete himself who went on to play college basketball in Division III, he grew angry when learning about the injustice. At the time, his hero was Jim Brown, the NFL great and former Syracuse star.
“He became my closet idol,” Henley said of his cousin with a laugh.
Henley’s mother, Adelaide Webb Henley, is still alive at the age of 101. She described Sidat-Singh to him as “warm, funny to be around.”
Saturday will be Henley’s first Maryland football game, though he has spent much of his life in the area as an elementary school teacher in Montgomery County, Md. Fellow teachers and friends always asked him why he didn’t support Maryland athletics more, why he didn’t have any Terrapins gear. He often just said it was a long story.
Henley says he was at the 1966 NCAA basketball national championship when Texas Western (now UTEP) defeated Kentucky with five black starters, an NCAA first, at Maryland’s Cole Field House. Henley remembered his blood boiling when Maryland championed itself for integrating African-Americans into the program with Darryl Hill in 1963.
“These things stuck with me, made me grind my teeth throughout the years,” Henley said.
He expects that anger to subside Saturday when his cousin’s tale is told to a packed stadium.
“When I was contacted by Maryland to tell me this was going to happen, I cried,” Henley said. “When I walk out onto that field, I know tears will get me. I carried the torch of his legacy for so long. I’m going to be proud, I’m going to be cheerful. I’m going to hope people see this — especially students at the University of Maryland — and come out knowing there is room for everybody and wrongs can be corrected. It’s never too late.”